Supreme Court Blocks Trump's Migrant Deportations: Using 1798 Act to Expel Them Illegitimate

The Trump administration's plans to deport migrants in the United States to date may have hit a snag.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the White House cannot use the Alien Ememies Act , a law dating back to 1798 that allows the president to expel without trial people from a country at war with the United States, to expel Venezuelan migrants accused, without due process, of being part of criminal gangs like the “ Tren de Aragua .”

The Alien Ememies Act had been used instrumentally by Donald Trump : it was a law designed for war times and in fact used during the Second World War to expel from the country people originally from nations that were enemies of the United States, such as Italy or Japan.

Today Trump uses it to decree that the activities of Venezuelan gangs in the country are a hostile act against the country, thus sending dozens of Venezuelans to a maximum security prison CECOT in El Salvador , a country where human rights violations are systematic.

The decision taken on Friday by the Supreme Court, with a large conservative majority given the six members of the Republican area against only three progressives, comes after the judges had already suspended the expulsion of Venezuelan migrants "until further notice" on April 19.

The Supreme Court's decision, called into question by the appeal filed by the lawyers of several Venezuelan migrants who had received a notice of expulsion less than 24 hours before it took place

It is temporary, however: the case has been sent to the Texas Court of Appeals (the migrants are being held in detention facilities in Texas). The Court will therefore decide the case, but until then the people cannot be deported out of the country.

Donald Trump called the decision “evil and dangerous” for the United States, and accused the Court of preventing the administration from “throwing criminals out of our country.”